Lady Death: American anime?

Lady Death: The Motion Picture
OAV, 2004. Director: Andrew Orjuela. 80 minutes. Price & format: DVD English $29.98. Distributor: A.D.V. Films.

A.D.V. Films has been a major American importer and producer of English-translated anime since 1992. Now A.D.V. has released (October 5) its own direct-to-video animated feature, Lady Death: The Motion Picture, produced by Sunmin Image Pictures Co. Ltd. in Korea. This is not A.D.V.’s first production; that was the October 2000 SIN: The Movie, based on an American battle-action video game and animated in Japan. That ended up on the Anime shelves, and that is where you will likely find Lady Death, too. “American anime?” You decide.

Lady Death is based on the American comic book by writer Brian Pulido and artist Steven Hughes, published by Chaos! Comics since January 1994. A poster girl of the “Bad Girl” school of sexy but deadly comic book “superheroines” like Vampirella, Lady Death’s origin story is summarized in this movie. 15th-century Sweden is racked by religious wars masterminded by Duke Matthias, who creates so much misery by sadistically torturing “sinners” that people begin to curse God. That is his goal, for Matthias is actually Lucifer himself. As part of his disguise he married a pious noblewoman and they have an innocent daughter, Hope, who is unaware of her father’s real nature. When the Lord of Lies’ identity is revealed, the peasants burn Hope at the stake assuming that she is also demonic. Arriving in Hell where she has powers almost as great as Lucifer’s own since she is his daughter, she becomes the pallidly, pulchritudinous Lady Death who vows to overthrow him.

The rest of the movie is Medieval-type warfare with Lady Death’s and Lucifer’s armies of skeletons and rotting zombies surging back and forth across the fire-&-brimstone landscape. Lady Death and her General Cremator defeat Lucifer’s Archduke Asmodeus; then, to cut the story short, Lady Death slays Lucifer himself. This leaves her as the new Mistress of Hell, but facing constant battle against Lucifer’s other Generals such as Belial and Beelzebub.

Lady Death, produced and directed by A.D.V.’s special projects coordinator Andy Orjuela with animation directed by Sunmin’s Young Hwan Sang and Hea Young Yoo, is age-rated 17+. It feels like MTV’s animated version of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn or a naughtily blasphemous pastiche of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Would the real Lucifer lose control so easily over Hell’s tortured souls who defect en masse to a rebel army? Would he need a sinister spy to find out what is going on in Hell outside his castle? Would a Valkyrie general fight in only a black-leather bikini-thong costume, switching to a black filmy negligee in her camp tent on the march?

The Korean-produced animation quality is very reminiscent of such `80s American TV cartoons as such He-Man, G.I. Joe and Transformers (according to a “Making of” DVD extra, Sunmin worked on the `90s Disney’s Gargoyles). The voice actors project convincing emotion, yet undercut their performances by enunciating each word with artificial precision. Lady Death may be a hit with the American comic book’s fans (the theologically revisionist version of Hell is Pulido’s and Hughes’ fault), but this yucky yet passionless horror action-fantasy is no match for the quality level of, say, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.